1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to user interfaces in client systems, and more specifically to supporting display of context menus in both cascaded and overlapping styles.
2. Related Art
A context menu refers to a menu, which is displayed upon the performance of a corresponding action (e.g., right clicking of a mouse) associated with a graphical element displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI). In general, different menus are associated with different graphical elements (and/or corresponding state), and the displayed menus typically represent the choices available to the user associated with that graphical element in the corresponding context or state, as is well known in the relevant arts.
Context menus often contain menu items at different levels according to a hierarchical structure. In general, menu items at an immediately lower level are accessible by selection of (e.g., clicking on) the corresponding menu item at the parent level (i.e., immediately higher level). Thus, when menu items at a level are displayed on a display screen, a user may select one of the menu items using components such as mouse and key-boards, to cause menu items at the corresponding lower level to be displayed.
Context menus are often displayed in a overlapping style or cascaded style, when a user navigates across such multiple levels. In a overlapping style, the same area on a display screen is used to display the menu items at a child level, as that used for displaying menu items at the corresponding parent level. Such overlap is manifested by at least substantially more accentuated visibility (in the extreme case, the menu items at parent level not being visible) of the lower level menu items in the overlap areas.
Thus, the menu items at a parent level may be displayed with substantially less prominent resolution and/or color, compared to the menu items at lower level. At least in the overlap area, a user may select only the menu items of the lower level (of the hierarchy) that are displayed more prominently. The need for display in overlapping style is present particularly in mobile phone type devices, which have smaller display areas (compared to personal computers and work-stations), and accordingly the style is often referred to as mobile-style also. However mobile style display can be employed in other environments as well, for example, when images are rendered by Flash Player available from Adobe Corporation, on HTML based browsers in desk-top computers.
Cascading style display of context menus is typically employed when there are less constraints as to the display area. In cascading menus, the lower level items are displayed with substantially no overlap with the menu items of the higher level, and menu items of both levels may be available for selection.
Many computing environments contain some systems which display context menus in overlapping style and other systems which display context menus in cascaded style. It is accordingly necessary to support display of menu items in both cascaded and overlapping styles.
In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.